“If you buy a gun, you have to have a FOID card,” said Jim Webster, a Rockton tree-farm owner, Winnebago County Board supervisor and gun-rights proponent.

“Dealers at gun shows ask for FOID cards. There’s a mandatory waiting period, so you still can’t walk out with that gun.”

Illinois is the only state that bans concealed carry of firearms, but a federal appeals court has given legislators until June 8 to craft a bill allowing residents to do so.

The Senate is expected to begin weeks of debate on national measures to expand background checks for more firearms buyers, strengthen laws on illicit gun sales, and add money for mental health and school security.

The measure faces many hurdles — the biggest may be the Republican-controlled House of Representatives — before it is sent to the president.

Jude Wrzesinski of Cherry Valley says she’s glad the gun debate has made it to Congress, but background checks are just a start.

The co-organizer of the progressive Rockford MoveOn Council is circulating a petition to not only strengthen background checks, but ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines often used in mass shootings.

“The more types of gun sales that would be covered by” the Senate’s measures, she said, “the better.”